


From Friendly Hands

by Boji



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-02
Updated: 2006-03-02
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:24:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2346746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boji/pseuds/Boji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're on the outside looking in, does anyone see you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Friendly Hands

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** Everything up to **Critical Mass** _especially_ **Epiphany**  
>  **Disclaimer:** What belongs to the SCI FI Channel and MGM Television Entertainment, Brad Wright and Robert Cooper is theirs; but what’s mine is mine, including the original elements in this story and the words I’ve used to tell the tale.

It was not the food that had attracted him. Nor the warmth of recycled air, or a soft mattress replete with clean smelling sheets. Ronon knew these things were transitory and no matter how much he enjoyed them, he knew future circumstance might find him on the run, sleeping rough.

Soon.

Again.

No, comfort had not been the deciding factor. And he wasn't staying put because of the paltry illusion that there was any safety in numbers. Yes, men stood at his back once again, but Ronon didn't fool himself that their advanced weaponry offered him much more protection than his blaster had. There were no definitive promises from these humans striding forth across the Pegasus galaxy. He hadn't asked for any. Nothing in the known universe, that Ronon knew of, could prevent them from being culled en-mass at the end of one unlucky day. And in the meantime he stayed because of something peculiar to these survivors, they who had made their home in the city of the ancestors. He had stayed because of their enthusiasm. Their spirit which hadn't waned, nor really been blunted, despite the war trials they had faced. It was that _spirit_ he found most... intriguing.

Attractive.

Compelling.

 

It was why he watched them. Watched Sheppard. Although, to be fair they _all_ seemed as foolhardy as they were stubborn. They all believed that guts and perseverance could win through. Ronon knew intimately that someone _could_ survive on stubbornness, but it sapped you just as surely as a Wraith might. Lack of shelter wore you down. Lack of food, companionship. The absence of touch. Life without any of these was akin to a threadbare blanket in a snowstorm. As Ronon sat alone at a table in the mess hall, he was vaguely aware people found him unapproachable. He'd been accepted, told that he could make a place for himself here, yet people held themselves away from him, no matter how many days had passed.

Ronon turned his gaze back to the food on his plate. The bread rolls that had been freshly warmed when he'd taken three from their basket bed were still springy to the touch. He'd made neat work of meat-balls in spicy sauce, and the small mound of unrecognisable vegetables were fast disappearing, fingers moving between plate and palate smoothly. He ignored the cutlery Sheppard insisted he use. Food tasted better when it was eaten with your fingers; childhood taught him that. Bread bites sopping up the sauce reconfirmed it. He ate, savouring the food and tried to ignore the looks that were cast in his direction. As if a knife and fork were what made a person civilised. As if food taken from someone's fingers, or your own, automatically made you a barbarian.

He couldn't help that his outlook on all things differed to that of the people of Earth and so Ronon did what he had always done well: observed, scouted. He helped when asked, protected others, even when his protection went unnoticed. And he tried not to crave praise from Sheppard, who remembered minutiae about his crewmen's lives and greeted everyone with a friendly smile that was as warm as early summer sunshine. Yet, it was hard for Ronon to constantly be ambivalent when he'd had the need for validation, for guidance, trained into him with fist blows. Kell had been a harsh taskmaster, loco-pater, disciplinarian. Short sharp taps that had often been followed by gentle caresses through his then unwashed hair. Out of all the boys recruited with him, Ronon alone had excelled, had strengthened when others had broken.

Oh, he'd heard the rumours about Kell and his uses for his warrior-boys, but that was all they'd been, rumors. Kell's boys were trained to be men, not trained in the old pedagogic ways to be brothers-in-arms. When puberty had struck the platoon fiercely, they'd just been worked harder and had trained harder to earn vaunted trips to pleasure houses. If chores were done. If you'd made the weekly grade, then Kell would make the arrangements and sometimes excuse you from the next morning's rotation. Ronon had lost his virginity between twins: voluptuous, dark haired and dark-eyed girls who'd giggled, licked and kissed his reticence and innocence away.

Until he'd started running, there had only ever been girls. He'd never felt the need for stronger arms to shelter him. For the scratch of stubble against his inner thigh, for broad hands to hold him steadfast. And yet those scant experiences in the baths on Arcadia, when he'd spilled his seed across another man's belly, come in a firm masculine mouth, those moments haunted him. He watched Sheppard from the corner of his eye and told himself he watched to assess military weakness. To better understand the depth of Sheppard's bond to his team. Told himself it had nothing to do with hazel eyes as mercurial as the weather and hair tousled as if Sheppard had always just risen from his bed.

He'd thought, at first that Teyla warmed that bed at night. He'd watched covertly, but all he'd seen was the constant warm distance between them.

Weir? Her body language spoke of one longing to shrug off the burden of command, but Caldwell had been closer to stepping into that breach than Sheppard, no matter how much Elizabeth had protested. Her eyes spoke different words than those she voiced. Ronon was sure that once the alien snake was removed from the military commander, they'd resume their dance.

McKay? He was as intriguing as he was annoying. Demanding much of Sheppard's time and attention. Ronon had started watching the brilliant man, wondering what the overgrown immature child could offer such an expedition. His enthusiasm was annoying, grating, yet sometimes charming. He was like music, Ronon mused. A complex and difficult symphony that could be admired for its artistry, but which didn't move the heart's footsteps like a cresting wave or the beat of a drum. Yet his manic energy seemed to power the city of the Ancients as well as the crystalline power source did.

Ronon could see that enthusiasm now, clear from across the mess hall. Rodney was waving a food utensil around in the air, talking to Dr. Beckett, conducting his own symphony of words.

Ronon swallowed down a smile with a bite of sauce-drenched bread at the vision of the stocky scientist as a human ZPM, powering all who surrounded him. In contrast, Becket was more like the alcoholic beverage he had hidden in the healing centre. Brandy, he'd called it. It went down warmly with a hint of spice and reminded Ronon of _lartiz_ , the thick warm syrupy-drink his grandmother had made on festival days. It had fermented in a large pan, on the back burner of her controlled flame, while she baked and kneaded, stuffed and glazed. Prepared a feast fit for a family. Gran-Marta had been off-world, enjoying the trade-festival when she'd been culled. Ronon had enlisted the very next spring. Lied about his age to pass recruitment. He'd revealed himself to be a natural marksman and the recruitment sargent had overlooked his obvious youth. Later, Ronon had understood how hungry Sedata's military machine had been for soldiers, for cannon fodder and for the few that would break through the ranks to leave their mark.

Soldiers of his caliber.

Here on Atlantis, all they saw was the strength he took care to project. Most missed that fact that he had a brain and had been schooled and trained to use it. Sheppard had a tendency to notice things that other people overlooked, but then he too downplayed his abilities. Ronon knew that if anyone but Sheppard had suggested he stay and fight the Wraith from Atlantis, make this his base, his home, he would have refused and probably run himself to a grateful death in a ditch or a ravine somewhere. Unnamed, forgotten, hungry and cold.

Sheppard had asked. Watched. Almost courted him.

Chewing a sweet tasting morsel of meat, Ronon looked over at Teyla, who waved at him from her place in the food queue - the same queue that had parted to let him past.

But the city had accepted him, sheltered him. That was what was important. Weir and Sheppard trusted him on missions. It shouldn't have galled that so many kept him at arm's length. Ronon tried to tell himself that it was enough Sheppard's team, Sheppard himself, had made him welcome. John would have broken bread with him, if he'd been in the mess. Would have made him laugh, low in his belly, even if he'd swallowed the sound down so as not to call attention to the one person who could bring him a true moment of joy amid his daily struggle and festering, denied mourning. His people had been obliterated from the galaxy and there was nothing he could do to bring them back, or avenge them. His family had never known his fate. Had they mourned him? Sighing, Ronon pushed the tray away and stood up to leave the food conc...

 _Mess_. The mess was what they called it, and their denominations were important. Using the right terms made it easier for people to regard him as less hostile, less of a threat. As if the correct wording meant he couldn't snap a person's spine with just the right amount of pressure from a well placed knee.

Ronon found his way into quiet, unused corridors that led nowhere but to the outer rims of the city, to sunlight and sea breezes, to places where the walls didn't hum and doors didn't open to receive you like a leader in procession. Even with the cullings on other worlds, these people took it for granted. Sanctuary. Even with their previous battles against other foe... somehow they hadn't been emotionally eroded. And that Ronon envied. Revenge was paltry sustenance, a poison fermenting in the gut if left for too long. He tried to dilute it, tried to soak up some of the enthusiasm Sheppard projected. He quickened his pace. Pretended not to notice as Sheppard's men moved to the side of the corridors to let him pass, as if he were unclean. As is they truly knew how dangerous he could be, when roused. It reminded Ronon of that moment in the interrogation room when Sheppard had looked at him in silent accusation as he'd stood over the fainted scientist. As if he'd kill without a direct order. Without Sheppard's say so.

His smooth stride slid into a run and he raced through corridors he knew like the back of his own hand until exterior doors opened and cool breeze bathed his face. Ronon stood on the balcony and inhaled salty sea air. Once, twice, he expanded his lungs and tried to will away the emotions that suffocated it was no use. He needed to hit.

Run.

Fuck.

Exhaust himself so that his mind stilled.

Impulsively, he kicked off his boots and shrugged out of his trousers, dropping them to the floor with his blaster belt. The tank top came next until, for the modesty of Sheppard's people, all that was left were his shorts and the leather-thonged charms that hung around his neck. He climbed nimbly onto the metal balcony, stared out at the horizon, and jumped off the edge. He'd either make the dive and survive the hit, or the fall would bring oblivion.

He hadn't expected the very air around him to change in density so that it felt as if he were falling through honey. Nor that the shield would reach out to help slow his velocity so that when he did enter the water it was from a height less steep than the training boards he'd learned to dive from before he'd left home and joined Kell. He also didn't expect to see a puddle jumper with it's loading bay doors open, hovering, stationery above the flat, blue water when he surfaced.

"You going for an Olympic record? Or a broken neck?" Sheppard asked. He was seated on the floor of the puddle jumper. Barefoot, feet in the warm sea-water, his trousers rolled up his calves.

"Sheppard." Ronon pulled himself up onto the deck of the puddle jumper, much like one would onto the side of a pool.

"Ronon."

Sheppard was holding a metallic pole, its translucent wire sailed into the air and landed at a slight distance from them in the water. It was, Ronon recalled, a fishing rod. Primitive societies made theirs out of wood. Other people used nets to catch fish. He wasn't sure how Teyla's people gathered the sustenance that fed everyone, but maybe now that the Daedalus travelled from earth, they imported everything from home. How could they take their luck for granted? Ronon wondered.

"Weir sent you to ... reprimand me?" He asked, waiting for the disapproval, the censure. Once it came he'd be free. He'd stop needing Sheppard's approval and he could be on his way to... _Nowhere._

"Nah, just fishing, or saving up for a melanoma. Depends who you ask." The only concession Sheppard had made to the sunshine and the elements were the wrap-around tempered glasses protecting his vision. The wind ruffled his hair and Ronon found his fingers wanting to mimic the invisible touch.

"You're attempting to capture food?" he asked awkwardly.

"Zen fishing. There isn't any capturing involved. More like contemplating or navel gazing." Instead of anger there was a smile.

Ronon let his eyebrow rise, let the confusion show through on his face. What was that expression they used? Hot air?

Sheppard leaned back on this elbows. The fishing pole jutted out from its resting place between his legs. There was something suggestive about the pose, but then there was something suggestive about everything Sheppard did. The way he moved, smiled, paid attention to what you didn't say.

"General O'Neil swears by it. He used to be head of the SGC before he got booted to Washington. 'Course, he booted me here first."

Looking back over his shoulder he spotted Sheppard's boots and what looked like a towel. Standing, Ronon made his way into the puddle-jumper bay and began to towel off. "Booted?" he asked, waiting for Sheppard to reveal the purpose behind the story he was recounting. After the story would come censure, surely.

"Transferred under... well, I wasn't happy about it." Sheppard said. "Funny. Wouldn't have it any other way now."

"In your military... they let you choose assignments?" Ronon asked, tying the towel around his waist. If that was the case, it explained a great deal about Sheppard and the way he ran Atlantis.

Ronon slid his shorts off beneath the towel, left them in a wet heap on the floor, and moved back to Sheppard's side. As he sat down on the floor again he tried not to notice that Sheppard moved sideways into the shade, conceding the spot warmed by the sun and his body heat.

"Yeah right, and pigs might fly. Though come to think of it, out here Weir kind of lets us do our own thing. Any flying pigs where you were from?" Sheppard asked carefully.

"Pigs?"

"Swine."

"Flying swine?"

"Earth joke."

Unspoken words were drowned out by gull cries and the gentle thrum of waves.

Ronon leant back on his elbows, stared at John's jaw from beneath slightly closed eyes and wondered if the growing stubble on the other man's face was itchy or painful now that the recent beard had been shaved off. He ran his fingers across his own wiry-trim goatee beard and thought of scraping his skin clean with a straight razor. Would he be more approachable? Appealing, shaved? Would... John think so?

The black uniform t-shirt the other man was wearing had ridden up slightly and Ronon could see firm abdominal muscle sprinkled with curly hairs that sprouted down across every man's belly, protecting and framing their groin. Like women, each man was different, even in their similarities. Unique. Cut, uncut. Hefty, narrow, curved, or standing proud like an obelisk, like the central spire of Atlantis. Ronon laughed slightly at the thought and smiled at John who turned at the slight sound. Observation at the Arcadian baths had confirmed what Ronon knew already from a lifetime in barracks. But there he'd seen that men kissed differently as well. They kissed badly, expertly, deeply, lightly. Just like they breached each other's bodies. They touched hurriedly or slowly depending on need or preference. He wondered what would happen if he breached the distance that remained between him and Sheppard, leaned across and touched John. If he laid his own broad hand against another's muscled thigh, gave some unmistakable signal, what would happen?

Rejection? Refusal? Disgust? Did Sheppard's men even see what made him so compelling? Oh it wasn't that he was beautiful. There were other beautiful men on other worlds. But none smiled just like that, or exuded warmth in just such a way or motivated you to fling yourself into action or danger because they were at your back or leading you into the fray. What made Sheppard so dangerous wasn't that he was a man you could die for. It was that he was a man you could follow into life.

"I taught myself to want for nothing." Sheppard spoke slowly. Ronon listened intently as the other man's hands clenched around the fishing pole. "To only take what I needed, from the supper table, from friendly hands."

Ronon remembered such days well.

"After all, who knew how long it was going to take them to ascend, or if there would be enough crops to go around. And some food came out the ground tasting like that weird fusion cooking that was fashionable a while back - back on earth."

In the recent days when he'd been hungry, Ronon had been happy if a crop had been pulled from the ground and was free of rot and pests, if it was edible. He'd given thanks if there had been a stream near by, so that he could wash off the soil before he'd eaten whatever he'd scavenged: shoots, roots, even grass, for whatever sustenance that had afforded him.

John, for it was John speaking now - the man not the officer - spoke quietly, steadily, but emotion thrummed in his voice. "I tolerated them. They tolerated me."

Was this how John saw him? Did he, too, expect that Ronon should gravitate towards Teyla? The two _outsiders_ mated, paired off - Forever separate.

"Oh and they healed me... a lot. Pushed me out in front of the great monster of their collective id. And I'd seen the movie, not that this planet came with a blonde in a bikini. But..." John paused and circled the subject again. "Well it wasn't like we were friends, you know? When there's no connection? When you speak the same language but all you get is confusion?"

Ronon knew that feeling well.

"I don't want us..."Sheppard began. "I don't want you..."

A sick feeling swirled in Ronon's gut. He'd mistaken. Sheppard too, saw only a well trained weapon. Then, a hand reached out and clutched at his bicep. "Damn. Listen. I don't want you to feel like you're on the outside looking in. That you can't come to me. And if I didn't get it before? Before I was stupid enough to almost get myself marooned for life? I get it now. I see you."

John paused, looked over at Ronon and pushed his sunshades up off his nose. Smiling eyes looked and Ronon wondered, not for the first time, what Sheppard saw when he looked at him. "You going to say something?"

"Do you place great stock in my words?" A sea breeze blew in to the bay of the puddle jumper and Ronon shuddered. He wished ineffectually for his coat. That would have kept him warm as the afternoon turned colder.

"Well you could have said you were cold you great... goof." A wave of John's hand and an energy barrier came down sealing the puddle-jumper in an air bubble. The atmosphere began to warm.

Then to further confuse matters, John pulled his t-shirt off over his head and reached over to begin drying Ronon's hair with it. Entranced by the movement of the other man's muscles, the smell of sun warmed skin, the dusky brush of body hair that patterned his arms and chest Ronon said nothing. Moments later the movement stopped and John sat back on his heels and looked at Ronon. He knew the glazed look of lust hadn't been missed by his superior commander. Knew too that the towel, saronged around this waist, hid little. It had been too long since he'd had pleasure from anything other than his own hand.

"You..." Sheppard said, and he had to think of him as _Sheppard_ now if he was to extricate himself from this situation. "Is this a commanding officer thing? A sub, dom thing? What?" Sheppard tilted his head slightly and looked at Ronon more closely. He felt the flush race up the back of his neck and knew his blush was obvious. "It's not, is it?"

"Look..." Ronon had little idea of what he could say. But then there was a firm hand against the side of his face, gun-calloused fingers stroking the pulse under his ear.

"Ronon. You're under my command." Sheppard shrugged. "Kinda. And anyway, I'm not supposed to take care of my men this way." Ronon nodded. "Your last C.O. take care of you in this way?"

"What? No!" Embarrassed and angered at his own lack of control Ronon moved out of the welcome touch. "Kell was... It was never such a relationship."

"No?"

"No," Ronon said firmly.

"Ah, well then," Sheppard smiled. "Glad you didn't break your stubborn, beautiful neck." Deft and quick, the older man leaned in and pressed a quick kiss against Ronon's startled mouth. "Come on, we better check in before they send a patrol out looking." He stood and made his way to the pilot's seat, shoes and fishing rod forgotten on the still open deck of the puddle-jumper.

"You're not going to reprimand me?" Ronon asked.

"What? For going for a rather dramatic swim? No." He looked back over his shoulder at Ronon. "Do you want me to?"

"You kissed me." Ronon said, getting up from the puddle-jumper floor.

"You got that, good." Sheppard smiled. "Back home when we put things off for a later date, we call that a rain check."

"You're postponing, what exactly?"

"Thought we could talk about that." Sheppard tapped his ear piece twice. "Elizabeth, I've located Ronon."

"Oh good. What happened to his earpiece?" Weir's worry for him was evident in the voice transmitted through speakers in the puddle-jumper.

"Ah it had a slight brush with water, that's all. Nothing to worry about."

"This have anything to do with the clothes found on the South-east balcony?" Weir asked.

"It's a nice day to play hooky and go swimming don't you think?" John asked.

"If I sign you both out for the day, how is that playing hooky?" Weir asked.

"So, call it much needed R&R. When was the last time any of us took a half-day?" John asked.

Weir sighed. "Try not to do anything too stupid. And don't blow anything up."

"Elizabeth..."

John sounded exasperated. Short. Impatient or angry? With him, or Weir? Ronon couldn't tell from the looks the other man kept giving him.

"Ronon..."

"Yes, Dr. Weir?" Ronon pulled his attention away from Sheppard, from the feel of warm air drying his skin and the soft towel rubbing against his hardening cock as he moved slightly in the co-pilot's chair.

"... Ah. Enjoy the afternoon."

A quick punch to the control panel and Sheppard cut transmission. "Finally." He moved quickly out of his seat and stood in front of Ronon. "Well you heard the lady. We're supposed to enjoy ourselves."

Ronon had been trained not to show emotion, fear, awkwardness. Yet it was hard not to react when lazy smiles could coax a reaction just as well as agile fingers.

"Want a hand with that?" A wave of Sheppard's hand in the general direction of his groin and Ronon felt his cock lurch, felt the tip moisten as desire thrummed through his veins like an elixir, or that damnable wraith extract.

"I thought you had a problem kissing a man under your command," Ronon said.

"Wouldn't say that it's a problem, per se..." The lazy smile was followed by a firm kiss. A slow swipe of tongue. "Just, well it's usually the kind of thing that gets you transferred to Antarctica."

"Where could they send you?" The agile mouth that usually showed displeasure, tension, approval, amusement was brushing lightly across the tendons in Ronon's neck, John's tongue laving the tattoo that was as much a part of Ronon's body as the nipples that were tightening under the teasing touch.

"Somewhere boring. Bumfuck Idaho..."

"That a real place?" Ronon pulled back slightly, moving restlessly in the co-pilot's chair that suddenly felt too confining for his muscular body.

"Oh yeah. Worth the risk though," John said with a flirtatious smile.

The first time a man had sucked his cock, Ronon had come almost immediately and been ashamed that the other man had spat out his seed. The second time he'd been left to his own completion. He never expected the third time to be in a puddle-jumper, naked on a spread out towel his commanding officer kneeling easily, hands and mouth working with enthusiasm. He hadn't expected to look down into those hazel eyes to see that mouth stretched to take him in, hadn't expected the nipping kiss to the throbbing vein on the underside of his prick, nor the questing thumb that pressed against the entrance to his body. The third man he came for was one he could live for, easily.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I found a Ronon!muse curled up on my sofa. And yet I think mine is less of a man!slut than everyone else's. I blame [](http://thisisbone.livejournal.com/profile)[**thisisbone**](http://thisisbone.livejournal.com/) Somehow she gave him my address. Like it? Hate it? Spotted an annoying typo, or three, let me know. Beta'd brilliantly by [](http://xanphibian.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://xanphibian.livejournal.com/)**xanphibian**
> 
> 



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